Bonni spent the first few minutes of her chemistry class the next morning texting Lada.
She had told her that they were doing theoretical work in home economics and it always "bored the sweet heck" out of her so Bonni had agreed to chat to her for a little bit.
Not for too long though. As difficult as it could be at times, Bonni actually liked chemistry. The formulas, reactions, compositions, seeing how matter could change, it was all so fascinating to her.
She smiled down at her phone as another message came through.
Still. It was nice to have a friend to text.
"Hey dude, who you texting?"
Bonni looked up and saw the long black mane of Marceline Abadeer as she slid into the seat next to her. The red-haired girl simply cocked an eyebrow at her and looked back at her phone.
"A friend," she told her, politely but by no means kindly.
There was a short pause then.
"Hey, if you don't like me because of what Marshall said to your brother yesterday, I understand," Marceline told her in a resolute voice. "But believe it or not, Marshall didn't mean to be a jerk. He was trying to make "Gumball" something people use in a friendly way so your bro wouldn't feel picked on by the name. Stupid I know, considering that Marshall doesn't even know the guy, but his heart was in the right place. Marshall isn't an asshole. Anyway, just thought you should know."
After her spiel, Marceline busied herself with getting her books out of her bag.
Bonni mulled over the words, feeling like they had been genuine. After all, the Abadeer twins didn't seem like mean people. They just seemed...spirited.
"I didn't decide to not like you because of that," Bonni told her, wanting to let this girl know that she wasn't some judgmental stick-in-the-mud.
"Good because I might need to borrow a pen from you," Marceline replied, digging through her rucksack.
Bonni laughed and the sound made Marceline smile at her.
"Here dude," the new girl said, passing her a pen. "Keep it, I've got plenty."
"Thanks," Marceline smiled, taking it. "And thanks for not thinking that my brother is an ass."
"No, I understand it now," Bonni said. "I just kind of had to put the defences up to protect my brother, y'know? At least until I actually got to know you."
"I totally get that," the black-haired girl responded, nodding. "But you know me now, right? Hi, I'm Marceline and my twin brother is not a complete fucker."
"Hi Marceline," Bonni said. "I'm Bonni and my twin brother isn't a complete fucker either. Well, most of the time."
The two girls laughed as their teacher entered.
"Oh hi there!" he said to Bonni, spotting the new addition to his class immediately and then turning to Marceline. "Look at that Ms Abadeer, this student's presence extinguishes the odd number problem in this class and now you have a lab partner!"
"Cool," Marceline said and winked at Bonni.
The red-haired girl just smiled, wondering why the heck that had made her blush.
Gumble had never understood the word "reluctant" more clearly in his life than on the walk to the school gym.
He hated PE class. He hated exercising with other people. He hated running and always being the slowest. He hated being booed at when he missed a catch or swung a bat through mid-air.
He hated the changing rooms, he hated being known as the kid who was bad at sports, he hated giving anyone another bullshit reason to bully him, he hated it. Hated it.
Most of all though, he hated how neither his sister nor any of his new friends were in his gym class. He had to face this one alone.
He arrived at the school gym (flanked by another stone mega pug) and made to walk inside.
When he saw the Lich, already changed into his PE clothes and joking around with a group of his friends. Gumble made to double-back but it was too late. Lich looked up and spotted him.
"Hey there new boy!" he called out to him in mock friendliness with a big sarcastic wave. "Are we going to be gym pals and bounce around together? I sure hope we're on the same team!"
All his friends nearly fell to the ground laughing.
Lich just gave Gumble his big grin.
"Hey," he said. "You looking forward to the changing rooms? You look like a guy who looks forward to the changing rooms," he nudged his nearest friend, "if you know what I mean."
That was enough. Gumble spun around and marched away from the gym, back towards the school. Cruel mocking laughter followed him and he was pretty sure he heard the word he hated the most be yelled at him as he took a sharp turn left and decided to cut across the football field.
Why me? Why is it always me?
This wasn't fair. Not here. Not in a new town with new people.
What had he ever done to Lich and his stupid friends? Why did they have to pick on him, especially for being-?
"Hey! Hey, over here!"
Gumble looked up and saw the last person he wanted to see now.
"Hey!" Marshall waved his hands from where he sat alone on the bleachers. "Hey dude, up here!"
"Not now!" Gumble shot back. "OK? Just not now!"
"Hey, come on!" Marshall called to him. "I wanted to apologise for yesterday!"
Gumble rolled his eyes. Wait a lame excuse. He picked up his pace, walking quickly now.
Marshall swore under his breath, scooped up his rucksack and darted down the bleachers after him.
"Gumble! Gumble, wait!"
Marshall rushed after him, caught up, reached out to grab his arm.
"Hey-"
"What the fuck do you want?" Gumble spun around and looked Marshall right in the eyes. "What did I do to you, huh? What did I do to any-"
"Hey, hey! You're right!" Marshall held up his hands defensively. "You're right, OK? Yesterday was stupid and I'm sorry. I thought if your friends used the nickname, it wouldn't bother you like it did when Lich said it."
"You're not my fucking friend!"
"No!" Marshall said loudly.
So loudly it made Gumble freeze.
"No, I'm not," Marshall repeated and bent down, reached into his bag.
He took out a can of cream soda and threw it to Gumble.
"Catch. I saw you drinking it yesterday at lunch. Consider it an apology. I'm sorry man."
With that, Marshall slung his bag over his shoulder and began walking away.
Gumble stared down at the can, barely believing it was there.
Then he looked up at the tall, messy-haired young man walking away from him.
"Thanks," he said, and Marshall turned around.
The redheaded guy gave him a small smile.
"That's really cool of you," he told him. "Thanks for buying me this."
"You're welcome man," Marshall replied. "And I am sorry for what I said yesterday."
"I'm sorry for what I just said a few seconds ago," Gumble said, feeling his face turn red in embarrassment. "I'm sorry I lost my temper at you like that, it wasn't fair. It's just that – that - nevermind. I'm sorry dude, OK?"
In response, Marshall stepped forward and held out his hand.
"Don't worry about it. Buds?"
Gumble smiled gratefully at him, grabbed his hand, shook it.
"Sure. Buds."
"Cool," Marshall stepped away from him, then suddenly caught sight of his gym bag.
"You skipping PE?" he asked him.
"Yeah," Gumble said, and not without a bit of shame in his voice. "I'm not a big let's-run-in-a-circle fan."
"What a coincidence, neither am I," Marshall said with a smile. "Wanna join me on the bleachers to sit this one out?"
Gumble smiled.
"OK."
It was a double class so their chemistry teacher gave them a five minute break between the two periods.
Bonni took the opportunity to ask Marceline about the gig bag she was carrying with her.
"Is that a guitar?" she asked her.
"Nah, my brother's the guitarist in the family, I'm the bassist," Marceline told the new girl. "Marshall always says I got two less strings to match my two less brain cells. Dick."
Bonni laughed.
"Yeah, I can relate. Gumble plays piano and he once told me that all musical talent obviously one went to the one twin."
"You don't play anything?" Marceline raised her eyebrows.
"Nah, I write lyrics to go with his stuff but that's about it."
Bonni suddenly felt her cheeks glow red, having revealed such a personal thing to someone she had just met. She hadn't even realized what she was saying until she had said it.
But, to her credit, Marceline was barely reacting.
"That's pretty cool," the black-haired girl said, as casually as if Bonni had just told her an interesting fact about a TV show. "I bet you write poems then too, huh?"
"Yeah, actually," Bonni said. "It's a hobby of mine."
"You got anything on you dude?"
"What, like a poem?"
"Poem, lyrics, random scribblings, whatever!"
Bonni hesitated, looked over at her notebook, then decided to take the leap.
"Uh, there's this," she flipped to the back of her notebook to a short verse she had written that morning.
Marceline went to take it at the exact moment that their teacher clapped his hands and told everyone to get ready to "dive back in."
Bonni watched Marceline out of the corner of her eye as she read the note, then outwardly flinched when the bassist tucked it into her pocket.
"Don't worry," she whispered to Bonni. "I won't show it to anyone. But I will have something cool for you tomorrow, OK?"
The red-haired girl nodded, more out of curiosity than anything else.
"Shit," Gumble held open the bread and peered into his sandwich. "Dad always forgets I hate turkey."
"Oh man, I love turkey!" Marshall yelped and reached into his own sacked lunch. "Trade you for tuna salad dude?"
Gumble smiled in pleasant surprise.
"I actually love tuna, thanks."
"No, thank you!"
The boys switched lunches and Marshall instantly bit into the bread.
"Oh dude, you don't know what you're missing!"
"Yeah, yeah," Gumble said, unwrapping the tuna salad. "I'll send your compliments to the chef."
Marshall laughed, mouth full of turkey and bread, and then chewed thoughtfully.
"Where did you move to our unassuming little suburb from man?"
"The big city of Ooo," Gumble said with a small smile. "We lived in a loft at the intersection of Lost Cliff and Apple Orchard."
"Oooh, fancy!" Marshall teased. "So why did you move here Lord Boehm?"
Gumble's face fell.
"Our parents divorced and our mom moved in with the guy she'd been seeing behind my dad's back," he said, a little bitterly. "So when my dad got the job offer out here, he jumped at the opportunity to move away from bad memories."
Silence.
Marshall just stared at him, shocked.
"Gumble, I am so sorry!" he said. "That's awful man! I'm sorry I made you talk about it!"
"Nah, it's fine," Gumble said but his voice was still dull. "We're a lot closer to our dad than our mom so moving out here with him was fine by me and Bonni."
Marshall nodded.
"I can understand that," he said pensively. "When our mom left and our dad was too busy with legal problems at work to look after us properly, me and Marceline didn't mind going into foster care as long as it was together."
"You were in foster care?" Gumble cried. "That's terrible, I'm so sorry!"
But Marshall was shaking his head.
"Nah man, it was fine," he said. "We had our Uncle Simon and he was literally the best caregiver you could ever ask for. A great parent, really. We loved him."
Gumble smiled.
"That's awesome, do you still see him?"
Marshall stopped chewing, his face collected gloom.
"No," he said shortly. "Alzheimer's got him in the end. Last time we visited him, he had no idea who me and Marceline were."
Gumble could only stare on in astonishment.
"I can't imagine dealing with something like that," Gumble said in a hushed voice. "That must suck."
Marshall shrugged.
"It's not so bad now. We're back to living with our dad and he pretty much just lets us do our own thing all the time. He's still pretty busy with work, y'know?"
"Sure," Gumble nodded. "Our dad is too."
He thought for a moment.
"You know," the redheaded boy paused before he went on. "As much as we're supposed to hate them, I kind of like having a sister there through all this shit."
Marshall nodded in understanding, still relishing his turkey sandwich.
"Yep," he said. "The camaraderie's pretty rad alright."
Gumble smiled at him and the dark-haired boy smiled back.
"Oh my gosh, you talked to the Abadeer twins?" LSP seemed to be in shock. "And they didn't try to knock either of you over and suck your blood?"
"Dude, shut up," Jake laughed, nudging her playfully.
"No way! You guys, you know I'm totally convinced that those two are freakin' vampires!" LSP's voice got shriller and shriller with each syllable.
Everyone at the lunch table just laughed good-naturedly at her.
"Nah, no blood-sucking," Bonni reported. "Marceline was cool."
"So was Marshall," Gumble chimed in. "I had an awesome conversation with him over on the bleachers!"
"Aww yeah dude, DMC's are where it's at!" Finn hollered. "Deep meaningful conversations for the win, yo!"
"How much sugar have you had today boy?" Carla muttered to Finn.
"You can invite them to movie night at my house this Friday if you want," Lada shrugged at the Boehms over her salad. "The more the merrier and all that!"
"Cool, thanks Lada!" Gumble smiled.
Bonni looked out the window, feeling happy.
Life in Advent Tides had been pretty good to her and her brother so far.
And she couldn't waitto see what that "something cool" was that Marceline had for her tomorrow.